Artist's view of the two configurations of ARIANE 6
A major contract worth 23M euros was signed on Friday, October 7th in which MT Aerospace announced they will be covering the development, manufacturing, delivery and commissioning of the mechanical systems for the upcoming ARIANE 6 until handover to CNES and ESA in May, 2018 at the Center Spatial Guyanais in Kourou, French-Guiana. MT Aerospace is a subsidiary of listed technology group OHB SE (Prime Standard, ISIN: DE0005936124).
This follows the decision taken at the ESA Council meeting at Ministerial level in December 2014, to maintain Europe’s leadership in the fast-changing commercial launch service market while responding to the needs of European institutional missions. This move is associated with a change in the governance of the European launcher sector, based on a sharing of responsibility, cost and risk by ESA and industry. The participating states are: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
MT Aerospace is significantly involved in the development and industrialization of the ARIANE 6 launcher system. With an industrial work share of about 10 percent MT Aerospace is risk-share-partner and Cluster Prime for Metallic Structures driving technical innovation and commercial competitiveness for the future launch system.
Hans J. Steininger, CEO of MT Aerospace said, “The signature of this contract represents for MT Aerospace the beginning of a new venture in a long history of ground facilities projects that MT has realized for ESA, CNES and Arianespace at the European Spaceport over the last forty years. The mechanical systems of ELA 4 represents an important part of the ground infrastructure for ARIANE 6.”